Hope you enjoyed meeting Charles Ware and his Morris Minor Centre in the magazine column this week (Autocar, 18 March, p80). Ware would prefer that we all think of car ownership in decades, rather than the short-term approach that the modern car industry lives by.
Now, I know you may not fancy a Moggy, but there are plenty of other classics out there which are every bit as interesting and easy to look after. Provided you are not fighting a rear guard action against rust, older cars are a pleasure to own. Mostly because the bits that go wrong you can usually sort out with a spanner and a screwdriver rather than a laptop.
Parts can also be pretty reasonable price-wise. Classic insurance is a pittance, and pre-1973 models are zero-rated for road tax. On top of these upsides there is also the sheer pleasure of driving something characterful. So, as spring hits us and all the classics come out of hibernation, go and snap one up.
A Caterham Seven is an option, even someone’s half-baked kit copy that you could spend the summer sorting out. Obviously, old Minis and Land Rovers are great too.
Rovers are wonderful as well: a Rover 2000 or a P5 coupe is a great way to travel. You can go foreign, of course, but Citroen DSs are getting pricey and, oddly, 2CVs have all but disappeared and very hard to find, according to my local Citroen nutter. He is currently transplanting a Rover V8 from a trashed MGB into the remains of a written-off 2CV. So you can see the sort of fun you can have.
Look after a classic and it will look after you, by not really depreciating. Modern cars are rubbish, so buy an old one, a really old one.
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